Commissioner James Gordon is the head of Gotham City's Police Department. He had only one child, a daughter named Barbara, who would go on to become a vigilante and ally of Batman's: Batgirl. Gordon was also unique amongst most of Gotham City's civic leaders due to his unquestionable trust of Batman, whom others thought of as nothing more than a masked vigilante.

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Gordon was a liutenant when Batman first appeared in Gotham, and was first on the scene at the tragic deaths of John and Mary Grayson. He was inadvertently responsible for putting the young Dick Grayson in Bruce Wayne's custody, fostering the friendship that would become their partnership as Batman and Robin.[1]

Professionaly, Gordon commanded enormous respect and loyalty from his officers, including Detective Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya, though he often had to contend with Bullock's distrust of Batman. One time, he disagreed with Bullock after the detective unleashed a task force against Batman for the attacks on pharmaceutical companies in Gotham. In the end, Gordon was proven right when it was revealed that Batman wasn't responsible, but that it was Man-Bat, all along.[2] Gordon had to prevent Detective Bullock from fighting Batman once again after Batman was spotted by Bullock in a crime scene where Scarecrow had recently struck. Gordon's trust in Batman was rewarded when Crane was delivered to his office by Batman himself.[3]

Some time later, Gordon was part of the investigation team on a failed bust. Gordon witnessed how Hackle, from Internal Affairs suspended the officers Montoya, Bullock and Wilkes. However, after Montoya and Batman solved the case, Gordon reinstated them and removed Hackle from the investigation.[5]

Gordon went to Mayor's Hill house after the incident with Jekko the clown and he found that the real Jekko has been tied down somewhere down the road and therefore the man posing as him was the Joker.[6] A few days later and under Gotham DA, Harvey Dent's instructions, Gordon organized a succesful raid to capture a great faction of Rupert Thorne's gang.[7]

Not long after this, Gordon was informed that the terrorist known as Red Claw was operating in Gotham and he started working to capture the group.[8] With help from Batman and Catwoman, Gordon and the GCPD captured the terrorists.[9]

In order to keep in close contact with Batman, Commissioner Gordon installed a giant searchlight on the rooftop of the GCPD Headquarters. The searchlight had a bat symbol engraved, which projected a summoning light in the shape of Batman's emblem. It was appropiately named Batsignal.[10]

Gordon also organized the GCPD on several cases in order to stop threats from different criminals like the Joker and his plan to murder public officials,[11] he conducted the investigation about the extortion racket which ended with the arrest of Hugo Strange.[12]

As the Commissioner of Police of Gotham, Gordon was exposed to several attacks by some of the most well known criminals in Gotham. He was kidnapped by Joker during Christmas Eve[13] and he was again attacked by the madman during a ceremony in his honor.[14] On both occasions he was saved by Batman. He was later captured by H.A.R.D.A.C., who created a robot duplicant of Gordon himself.[15] He was also framed for corruption by Gil Mason and Two-Face[16] and he was trapped in a virtual reality world by Riddler.[17]

During a raid against Jazzman and his gang, Gordon was seriously injured by one of Jazzman's bullets and he was taken to the hospital, where he was placed on intensite treatment. Gordon managed to recover despite his old age, much to everyone's delight.[18]

A short while later, Gordon was framed for taking bribes from mob boss Rupert Thorne and was arrested by Deputy Police Commissioner Gil Mason.[19] Eventually, Gordon's name was cleared as Mason was exposed as a corrupt officer, working for Two-Face in order to frame Gordon and take his position as Police Commissioner. The criminals were only exposed thanks to Batman, Robin and their new ally, Batgirl, who unknown to Gordon, was his own daughter, Barbara.[20]

In an innumerable amount of cases, he and Batman shared information and formed a strong friendship. They had mutual respect for each other and Gordon often felt that Gotham would fall apart without Batman, whilst Batman thought that the city needed a man like Gordon watching over it 24/7. Despite their respect for each other, Batman still had an incurable habit of disappearing in the middle of Gordon's sentences, something which the Commissioner found very irritating "one of these days I'm gonna nail his feet to the ground".